Syryn was returning to his room with the guard when he crossed paths with Yennie again. The pretty mer princess had blue eyes that he could not help but feel drawn to. She was graced with a lovely oval face and sweet dimples on her cheeks.

"Princess Yennie," Syryn said with a smile. "Allow me to introduce myself."

"I know who you are. Everyone does." The pretty mermaid smiled bashfully. Thick dark lashes fanned aquamarine blue eyes that sparkled with interest.

"Oh! What's my name then, Yennie?" Syryn said asked. He wore a charming smile that was on the flirtatious side.

The mermaid blushed to the tips of her gills. "Syryn," she said with a cute giggle.

"Yennie."

Arhak rolled his eyes behind them.

The bottom end of the mermaid's tail curled up in a U shape. She fanned the water slowly with her bright pink fins. "Would you like to go explore some shipwrecks, Syryn?" She asked shyly.

"Shipwrecks? That sounds like fun."

Yennie nodded excitedly. "I find a lot of treasures hidden in the sunken ships! I'll show them to you- ah but they're in my room."

"Am I not allowed in your room?" He teased.

It was that easy to make her blush.

"You are."

"I can't wait to see your treasures, Yennie."

Arhak thought it sounded wrong saying it like that. The princess thought too since she hid her pink-cheeked face by turning away.

"I- 'll see you later, Syryn."

Yennie rushed off with her attendant. They were heading towards the jellyfish stables.

"I don't think I'm attracted to mermaids," Syryn mumbled to himself.

Then why were you flirting with her? Arhak shouted in his heart.

"I got more excited by Enkansh biting my ear."

The guard had heard enough.

_____

At the depth of the ocean, night and day made no sense when little to no light penetrated the layers of water. The merpeople had day and night cycles timed by their own biological rhythms. Aeons of living in the water gave rise to an evolutionary trait that synced up their circadian rhythms.

Syryn was lying on his seagrass bed when a soft knocking drew his eyes to the door. He had left it unlocked for the guest he was expecting.

A silver-blue mer prince floated in and shut the door behind him.

"Hi," Drevin smiled at the violet-eyed beauty that was propped up on an elbow.

"Hello," Syryn answered with a matching grin. "Did you visit the surly siren?"

"Yes. I delivered a jar of the best poultice I own."

"What a good little prince," Syryn praised Drevin.

The mer prince sat on the clamshell bed. He saw that the mage's gaze was slowly perusing the lines of his iridescent scales so he waited quietly. Syryn reached out and ghosted his fingers over the baby soft scales that grew over the centre of the merman's abdomen. They resembled rose petals if roses were silver-blue in colour.

"They're very pretty," Syryn said to the merman. "I wonder what colour my scales would be if I was a merman."

"Violet like your eyes?" Drevin suggested.

The mage smiled, still tracing his fingers over the pretty scales. "Not as beautiful as silver-blue."

Drevin was wide-eyed when Syryn's wandering fingers stroked over a ribbed fin on his tail. He had to forgive the human for not knowing mermen biology.

"Syryn, If you touch a mer over there, it is a signal for intimacy," he delicately told the clueless human.

"Here?" Syryn's hand froze.

"Yes."

The mage was mortified. He had just accidentally groped the prince. His hand flew off the fin as if the appendage was made of lava.

"I'm sorry!"

The merman hid his laughter behind the sound of his throat being cleared.

"Would you like a hug?"

Syryn nervously tucked his hair behind his ears then pulled them back out when he remembered his ear lobe was half gone.

"Yea, that's what you came here for," he replied.

Drevin was less awkward this time. He pulled Syryn in for a full-bodied hug that enveloped the smaller human within his cool embrace. Syryn could feel the fine outlines of each scale on the merman's back, and the divots of his spine. The mer prince was respectful with his hands and kept them safely away from a human's no-go zones, as Enkansh had taught him.

Syryn melted into the hug. The way Drevin held him made him feel cherished. He thought about the man whose voice had called him Ryn. Was it his father? Brother? A friend? A lover?

"What are you thinking about?" Drevin asked as he began to put space between them.

"Nothing important," Syryn answered. Maybe he would soon be forgotten by that man.

"No? You look very foolish again."

Syryn playfully kicked at the merman's tail which curled around his leg.

"You keep calling me foolish. I don't like it."

"But you wear that expression like a second skin, Syryn. What were you thinking about that made you look so foolish?"

The mage was once again tracing his fingers over the pretty scales, but this time, he kept his hands away from fins.

"I was thinking about someone from the surface, someone important to me."

"A wife?" Drevin asked, curiously.

"A wife- no. Nevermind. I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave Silisia. I might as well forget about the surface world."

That wasn't true and Syryn knew it. He would fight tooth and nail to get back home once his memories were all returned to him.

"You might go home someday, Syryn. And when you do, I'll come with you." Drevin's voice was thick with longing.

"Why?" Syryn asked. "Why do you wish to leave this place?"

"When I was a little mer, I snuck out of the kingdom and swam to the surface where I saw the lantern in the sky that you humans call the sun. In all my life I had never beheld something so wondrous and warm."

Syryn silently listened to the merman.

"It was an experience worth the trouble I landed into later. I was caught by the patrols and sent to be punished. But I think I would like to see the sun again, and maybe the rest of what the surface world looks like."

"Why aren't you allowed on the surface? Aren't you a prince?" Syryn asked, not understanding what the rules were for.

"No, nobody is allowed to go to the top. It is the King's decree. After the untimely death of his beloved at the hands of the humans, my father has... He doesn't want to lose anymore. We obey him because the punishment is difficult to endure."

"Your father is foolish," Syryn whispered. And when the merman raised his brows, the mage shrugged.